SOVIET TURMOIL

Published: September 6, 1991

MOSCOW, Sept. 5—
The K.G.B. promised today that it would let agents break their vow of silence to help investigate the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who vanished after being arrested by the Soviets in 1945.

The new K.G.B. chief, Vadim V. Bakatin, agreed to release the names of former K.G.B. officials who were involved in the interrogation or investigation of Mr. Wallenberg and to let a joint Swedish-Soviet team interview them.

"The Soviet-Swedish commission will have the possibility to meet and talk with all the people who are now alive and who, in one way or another, are connected to the Wallenberg affair," said Maj. Gen. Nikolai Stolyarov, the K.G.B.'s No. 2 official, who was appointed last week along with Mr. Bakatin.

As a Swedish diplomat in Budapest, Mr. Wallenberg saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps in the closing days of World War II by issuing them diplomatic passports. When Soviet soldiers entered the city in 1945, they arrested him as a suspected spy and took him to Moscow, where he disappeared.

The Soviet Government told Sweden in 1957 that Mr. Wallenberg had died in a Moscow prison in 1947, but the Swedish Government disputed the assertion. Witnesses claim to have seen him alive in prison as late as the 1980's.

If he were still alive today, Mr. Wallenberg would be 79 years old.

The announcement today by the K.G.B. was a departure from its previous silence on the issue and reflects the changes in the Soviet government since the failed coup against President Mikhail S. Gorbachev last month. Mr. Bakatin replaced the K.G.B.'s former hard-line leader, Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, who was arrested for taking part in the coup attempt.

Mr. Stolyarov's briefing came a day after Mr. Bakatin gave Sweden five more documents on Mr. Wallenberg.

Mr. Stolyarov said the new documents did not confirm that Mr. Wallenberg died in 1947, but added that they "do not contain testimonies referring to him being alive after 1947," either.

The latest documents were handwritten and appeared to be related to Mr. Wallenberg's arrest and his work at the Swedish Embassy in Budapest.

At a separate news conference, the Swedish Ambassador, Carl Otto Orjan Berner, said today that the new documents shed no new light on Mr. Wallenberg's disappearance, but called their release encouraging.

"I am fairly convinced we have everything the present head of the K.G.B. knows exists," Mr. Berner said, but added, "That doesn't necessarily mean everything has been given to us." Files Reportedly Destroyed

"I don't think these documents prove the official version or disprove the official version," Mr. Berner said. "They do not really have a great bearing on the crucial question -- whether Raoul Wallenberg was killed or died in 1947 or is still alive."

The Soviet press agency Tass reported today that one of the documents was a letter dated June 12, 1957, from the chief of the K.G.B. to a senior Foreign Ministry official saying that documents on Mr. Wallenberg had been destroyed on the order of the leadership of the Soviet Ministry of State Security, which existed under that name from 1946 to 1954.

Tass said another document was a report by the political department of a Soviet infantry division "on the detention of Mr. Wallenberg and his driver on Jan. 14, 1945." The document says that Mr. Wallenberg protected the rights of Jews in Budapest during the war, the press agency said. Tass said the third document was an extract from a prisoners' registration book indicating that the Swedish diplomat was imprisoned on Feb. 6 of that year.

Tass said another document was a letter written in 1949 by Hans Leut, a private in a Soviet reconnaissance unit, to the chief of the Soviet prison in Vladimir. The letter mentions Mr. Wallenberg, but Mr. Stolyarov said that this did not prove that Mr. Wallenberg was still alive, Tass said.

The press agency said the fifth document was an extract from the testimony of a former consular officer in Budapest on Mr. Wallenberg's activities to protect Jews during the war.